Global celebrates record-breaking listening hours as well as growth in reach and share over the last quarter

Heart maintains its position as the UK’s biggest radio brand staying ahead of BBC Radio 2

Heart Breakfast hosts Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston

Global today reported an impressive set of RAJAR listening figures for Q3 2026 with quarter-on-quarter growth in reach, hours, and share. The broadcaster reaches 29.1 million weekly listeners for a record-breaking 289 million listening hours, and has a 28% market share.   

According to RAJAR, radio reaches an all-time high of 51.2 million adults in the UK every week – 87% of the population. On average, listeners are tuning in for more than 20 hours a week. 

Global leads UK commercial radio 

  • Global remains the UK’s biggest commercial radio group with a total weekly reach of 29.1 million listeners across its portfolio of radio brands.  
  • Global has the top three commercial radio brands with Heart, Capital and Smooth. 
  • In London, Global has the top four commercial radio stations for reach with Heart, Capital, LBC, and Smooth.  
  • Global also has the top four commercial radio stations in London for both share and listening hours with LBC, Heart, Capital, and Classic FM.  
  • Heart maintains its position as the UK’s biggest radio brand, attracting more than 13 million weekly listeners. It remains ahead of its nearest competitor BBC Radio 2 by 355,000 listeners. 
  • The Capital brand climbs to 9.1 million weekly listeners, outperforming the BBC Radio 1 brand by more than 1.5 million weekly listeners. 
  • Smooth is the UK’s third biggest commercial radio brand with a weekly audience of 7.5 million, growing in reach, hours and share in the past quarter.
  • LBC, the UK’s largest commercial talk radio brand, celebrates 3.6 million weekly listeners, growing in all metrics year-on-year.  
  • LBC’s agenda-setting line-up has enjoyed significant increases in both reach and hours year-on-year. Growth this year includes Nick Ferrari, James O’Brien, Shelagh Fogarty, Tom Swarbrick, Andrew Marr, Iain Dale, and Lewis Goodall. 
  • Classic FM is the UK’s most popular classical music brand with 4.4 million listeners each week. BBC Radio 3 only has 1.96 million. Classic FM hours have increased both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. Classic FM Breakfast with Dan Walker continues to reach 1.9 million weekly listeners, 1.3 million more than BBC Radio 3 Breakfast. 
  • Gold Radio enjoys more than 1.6 million weekly listeners, increasing in reach, hours and share compared to the last quarter. The station is also up 560,000 hours year-on-year. 
  • The following radio stations are also celebrating record numbers; Smooth Country (509,000), Heart 10s (391,000), Classic FM Calm (465,000), Smooth 70s (359,000), Heart Love (294,000), Radio X 90s (275,000) and Radio X 00s (163,000). 

Capital Breakfast hosts Siân Welby, Jordan North and Chris Stark

Commercial radio share remains ahead of BBC radio 

It’s an excellent performance for commercial radio this quarter across all commercial broadcasters. The share of radio listening sits at an impressive 56% (+1.1% QoQ), compared with 41.9% for BBC services. 

Other Global headlines 

  • Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden has 4 million weekly listeners. It retains its crown as the UK’s biggest commercial breakfast show. 
  • Capital Breakfast with Jordan, Chris and Siân has 2.7 million weekly listeners and has increased in reach, hours and share year-on-year. 
  • Capital XTRA, the UK‘s biggest hip hop and RnB station reaches 1.9 million weekly listeners.  
  • Radio X reaches 2.4 million listeners every week.  
  • LBC News reaches 1.1 million weekly listeners, with strong growth on the year in reach (+7.2%) and hours (+17.9%). 
  • The EE Official Big Top 40 from Global reaches 1.7 million weekly listeners, increasing in reach, hours and share on the quarter.  

Prime Minister Andy Burnham takes callers’ questions live during a phone-in on Shelagh Fogarty’s LBC show, at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. Photo: Matt Crossick/LBC

“Global has delivered record listening hours in this latest set of RAJAR results, underlining the enduring strength of our brands and the extraordinary connection they have with audiences.

Heart remains the UK’s biggest radio brand, while growth right across our portfolio of stations reflects the quality and breadth of our radio line-up.

Thank you to every Globaller who makes this possible, and to our listeners and advertisers for their continued support.”

Simon Pitts, Group CEO at Global

“It’s fantastic to see an all-time high for radio listening in the UK and how it continues to be such a big part of so many people’s lives.

I’m incredibly proud of the Global team for delivering this amazing set of results. It’s brilliant to see Heart, Capital and Smooth are the top three commercial radio brands in the UK.

There’s also impressive growth for some of our newer stations such as Classic FM Calm which is celebrating record numbers.” 

James Rea, Chief Content Officer at Global

Classic FM host Aled Jones